Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum
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Titusville, Florida

(The Flightline Unofficial Page)

Tico Belle Goes Flying

Tico Belle - 1 Tico Belle is an authentic C47A and a WWII veteran. The Museum flies it regularly, and we saw that they were getting ready for the day's fight.

Tico Belle - 2


Those invasion stripes were earned the hard way, the aircraft participated in the Normandy D-Day invasion.


We watched as the crew and passengers loaded up, and we waited for that wonderful sound of a radial engine startup.






Tico Belle - 3


Rattle
rattle
bang
rattle
rattle
bang
rattle
belch
bang
smoke
ROARRRR!



We watched her taxi toward the runway, and something seemed to change...

Tico Belle - 4
If you look carefully through the windows, you can see young men with blackened faces showing under their helmets, as they leave to jump into Ste. Mere-Eglise. Other aircraft of the invasion are already in the air.

Well, I can see them anyway.

Tico Belle - 5 As Tico Belle flew by, I dropped back to 1997 and noticed some familiar sights next to the hangar.

Continue the tour - Heavy Metal

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